The Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education is widely considered a seminal point in the battle to end segregation, but it was in fact the culmination of a decades-long legal campaign. Root and Branch is the epic story of the two fiercely dedicated lawyers who led the fight from county courthouses to the marble halls of the Supreme Court, and, in the process, laid the legal foundations of the civil rights movement.

Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America

Devil in the Grove is the winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Arguably the most important American lawyer of the 20th century, Thurgood Marshall was on the verge of bringing the landmark suit Brown v. Board of Education before the U.S. Supreme Court when he became embroiled in an explosive and deadly case that threatened to change the course of the civil rights movement and cost him his life. Despite death threats, the clan, and the urging of his associates, Marshall knew he had to defend "the Groveland Boys".

The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society

The Fierce Urgency of Now animates the full spectrum of forces at play during these turbulent years, including religious groups, the media, conservative and liberal political action groups, unions, and civil rights activists. Above all, the great character in the audiobook whose role rivals Johnson's is Congress - indeed, Zelizer argues that our understanding of the Great Society program is too Johnson-centric.

The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation

Drawing on private correspondence, notes from secret meetings, unpublished articles, and interviews, veteran journalists Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff go behind the headlines and datelines to show how a dedicated cadre of newsmen - first black reporters, then liberal Southern editors, then reporters and photographers from the national press and the broadcast media - revealed to a nation its most shameful shortcomings and propelled its citizens to act.

The History of Jazz, Second Edition

Ted Gioia's History of Jazz has been universally hailed as a classic - acclaimed by jazz critics and fans around the world. Now Gioia brings his magnificent work completely up-to-date, drawing on the latest research and revisiting virtually every aspect of the music, past and present. Gioia tells the story of jazz as it had never been told before, in a book that brilliantly portrays the legendary jazz players, the breakthrough styles, and the world in which it evolved. Here are the giants of jazz and the great moments of jazz history.

The Strange Career of Jim Crow

The Strange Career of Jim Crow is one of the great works of Southern history. Indeed, the book actually helped shape that history. Published in 1955, a year after the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education ordered schools desegregated, Strange Career was cited so often to counter arguments for segregation that Martin Luther King, Jr. called it "the historical Bible of the civil rights movement." The book offers a clear and illuminating analysis of the history of Jim Crow laws, presenting evidence that segregation in the South dated only to the 1890s.

The Wars of Reconstruction: The Brief, Violent History of America's Most Progressive Era

A groundbreaking new history, telling the stories of hundreds of African-American activists and officeholders who risked their lives for equality - in the face of murderous violence - in the years after the Civil War. By 1870, just five years after Confederate surrender and 13 years after the Dred Scott decision ruled blacks ineligible for citizenship, Congressional action had ended slavery and given the vote to black men. That same year, Hiram Revels and Joseph Hayne Rainey became the first African-American U.S. senator and congressman respectively.

The Living Wisdom of Howard Thurman: A Visionary for Our Time

When we face challenges too daunting to overcome, where can we find the strength to carry on? There is an inexhaustable wellspring of energy available to us in the mometns of quiet stillness when we become aware of the Divine. For decades, Howard Thurman's words have guided many toward this deep inner reservior, from leaders like Dr. Matin Luther King and President Barack Obama to countless people looking for the inspiration to deal creatively with the everyday struggles of life.

At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance - A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power

Rosa Parks is often described as a sweet elderly woman, whose tired feet caused her to defy the Jim Crow laws on Montgomery's city buses. Her supposedly solitary and spontaneous act, history tells us, sparked the 1955 bus boycott and gave birth to the civil rights movement. The truth of who Rosa Parks was and what really started the 1955 Boycott is far different than anything previously written.

Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865

The consensus view of the Civil War - that it was first and foremost a war to restore the Union, and an antislavery war only later when it became necessary for Union victory - dies here. James Oakes’s groundbreaking history shows how deftly Lincoln and congressional Republicans pursued antislavery throughout the war, pragmatic in policy but steadfast on principle. In the disloyal South the federal government quickly began freeing slaves, immediately and without slaveholder compensation, as they fled to Union lines.

Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and a Great American Land Grab

Jacksonland is the thrilling narrative history of two men - President Andrew Jackson and Cherokee chief John Ross - who led their respective nations at a crossroads of American history. Five decades after the Revolutionary War, the United States approached a constitutional crisis. At its center stood two former military comrades locked in a struggle that tested the boundaries of our fledgling democracy. Jacksonland is their story.

Stokely: A Life

Stokely Carmichael, the charismatic and controversial black activist, stepped onto the pages of history when he called for "Black Power" during a speech one humid Mississippi night in 1966. Carmichael’s life changed that day, and so did America’s struggle for civil rights. "Black Power" became the slogan of an era, provoking a national reckoning on race and democracy. In Stokely, preeminent civil rights scholar Peniel E. Joseph presents a groundbreaking biography of Carmichael.

Miles: The Autobiography

Universally acclaimed as a musical genius, Miles Davis was one of the most important and influential musicians in the world. Here, Miles speaks out about his extraordinary life. Miles: The Autobiography, like Miles himself, holds nothing back. For the first time Miles talks about his five-year silence. He speaks frankly and openly about his drug problem and how he overcame it. He condemns the racism he encountered in the music business and in American society generally. And he discusses the women in his life.

Believer: My Forty Years in Politics

The man behind some of the greatest political changes of the last decade, David Axelrod has devoted a lifetime to questioning political certainties and daring to bring fresh thinking into the political landscape. Whether as a child hearing John F. Kennedy stump in New York or as a strategist guiding the first African American to the White House, Axelrod shows in Believer how his own life stands at the center of the tumultuous American century.

Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics

For decades, history has considered Tammany Hall, New York's famous political machine, shorthand for the worst of urban politics: graft, crime, and patronage personified by notoriously corrupt characters. Infamous crooks like William "Boss" Tweed dominate traditional histories of Tammany, distorting our understanding of a critical chapter of American political history. In Machine Made, historian and New York City journalist Terry Golway convincingly dismantles these stereotypes.

Death of a King: The Real Story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Final Year

New York Times best-selling author and award-winning broadcaster Tavis Smiley recounts the final 365 days of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life, revealing the minister's trials and tribulations - denunciations by the press, rejection from the president, dismissal by the country's black middle class and militants, assaults on his character, ideology, and political tactics, to name a few - all of which he had to rise above in order to lead and address the racism, poverty, and militarism that threatened to destroy our democracy.

Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of FDR

A sweeping, magisterial biography of the man generally considered the greatest president of the 20th century, admired by Democrats and Republicans alike. Traitor to His Class sheds new light on FDR's formative years; his remarkable willingness to champion the concerns of the poor and disenfranchised; and his combination of political genius, firm leadership, and matchless diplomacy in saving democracy during the Great Depression and the American cause of freedom in World War II.

W. E. B. Du Bois, American Prophet: Politics and Culture in Modern America

Pioneering historian, sociologist, editor, novelist, poet, and organizer, W. E. B. Du Bois was one of the foremost African American intellectuals of the 20th century. While Du Bois is remembered for his monumental contributions to scholarship and civil rights activism, the spiritual aspects of his work have been misunderstood, even negated. W. E. B. Du Bois, American Prophet, the first religious biography of this leader, illuminates the spirituality that is essential to understanding his achievements.

Freeman

Freeman, the new novel by Leonard Pitts, Jr., takes place in the first few months following the Confederate surrender and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Upon learning of Lee's surrender, Sam - a runaway slave who once worked for the Union Army - decides to leave his safe haven in Philadelphia and set out on foot to return to the war-torn South. What compels him on this almost-suicidal course is the desire to find his wife, the mother of his only child, whom he and their son left behind 15 years earlier on the Mississippi farm to which they all "belonged".

Publisher's Summary

The riveting story of the two crusading lawyers who led the legal battle to end segregation, one case and one courtroom at a time

The Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education is widely considered a seminal point in the battle to end segregation, but it was in fact the culmination of a decades-long legal campaign. Root and Branch is the epic story of the two fiercely dedicated lawyers who led the fight from county courthouses to the marble halls of the Supreme Court, and, in the process, laid the legal foundations of the civil rights movement.

Charles Hamilton Houston was the pioneer: After becoming the first African-American on the Harvard Law Review, he transformed the law school at all-black Howard University into a West Point for civil rights advocacy.

One of Houston's students at Howard was a brash young man named Thurgood Marshall. Soon after Marshall's graduation, Houston and Marshall opened the NAACP's legal office. The abstemious, proper Houston and the folksy, easygoing Marshall made an unlikely duo, but together they faced down angry Southern mobs, negotiated with presidents and senators, and convinced even racist judges and juries that the Constitution demanded equal justice under law for all American citizens.

Houston, tragically, would die before his strategy came to fruition in the Brown suit, but Marshall would argue the case victoriously and go on to become the first African-American Supreme Court justice - always crediting his mentor for teaching him everything he knew. Together, the two advocates changed the course of American history.

What the Critics Say

"With deft portrayals of Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall and captivating accounts of the cases they were involved in, Rawn James, Jr. brings back to our attention two central figures in the nation's efforts to use constitutional law to confront and overcome our history of segregation and racism." (Mark Tushnet, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, Harvard Law School)

Yes, the book was so mesmerizing I will have to buy it to add it to my library. Courageous men.

Who was your favorite character and why?

It would be wrong of me to pick only one: Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Root and Branch

Any additional comments?

For most of us who try to find the right books that will provide solace and excitement sometimes the task is daunting. We find authors we thoroughly enjoy and even remain loyal through some books which are not as engaging and force us to wonder if we’ve wasted our money. Root and Branch, by Rawn James, is undoubtedly one of the best biography(s) and history book written. This book was better than a number of suspense/thrillers I’ve read/listened to in the past 21 years. I’m impressed with his ability to remove himself from the story and keep out all biases, report only the facts. He retells the story of some of America’s greatest men, civil rights activists, lawyer’s, and hero’s the country has ever produced. Not to mention their strong character, convictions, and duty to justice.

I originally ordered the book in an audio format and listened to the story as I worked and drove about. I’m so impressed that I am to purchase the book and make it a part of my library.

We start with Charles Hamilton Houston as a child growing up in Washington, D.C.; in a life of affluence not easily afforded to African-American’s of his time. We journey with him as he struggles through the segregated Army in the First Great War (WWI), as he goes on to become the first African-American to serve on the Harvard Law Review. He transforms Howard Law School to become an impressionable institution of judicial character, meeting Thurgood Marshall and winning their first case together; going on to cement a lifetime of mentorship and friendship. We listen as the men go on to challenge the hardships and segregation of the Jim Crow Era and solidify a place for all people at the table of educational equality.

I am extremely impressed with Mr. James’ literary abilities; his historical accuracy and prowess. Great Job!

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